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Emily4242's avatar
Emily4242
Copper Contributor
May 18, 2022

Stop automatic text-to-columns formatting

This morning I was pasting text into excel and using Text-to-Columns to parse it. Later, in a different file, I was pasting other text that I did not want parsed into different columns. But excel is automatically separating it. It is messing up my file formatting and forcing me to manually recombine the text into a single column. I can't find anywhere in the options that will stop this from happening. Any suggestions? Text-to-Columns should not be an automatic function.
  • Emily4242 

    Sometimes, Excel is too clever for its own good.

    Select an empty cell.

    On the Data tab of the ribbon, click Text to Columns.

    Select Delimited, then click Next >.

    Clear the check boxes of all delimiters.

    Click Finish.

    The problem should be gone (until the next time...)

  • Emily4242 

    Sometimes, Excel is too clever for its own good.

    Select an empty cell.

    On the Data tab of the ribbon, click Text to Columns.

    Select Delimited, then click Next >.

    Clear the check boxes of all delimiters.

    Click Finish.

    The problem should be gone (until the next time...)

    • P_A_R_K_Y's avatar
      P_A_R_K_Y
      Copper Contributor

      Selected an empty cell, then clicked Text to Columns ... ERROR: no data selected to parse. I really need Excel to stop auto Text to columns my CSV files as I happen to need leading zeros like it is in the csv file. 

      The Import from CSV file doesn't do anything different.  It imports into a window where its already converted a text field with leading zeros into a number and you can't change it.  The only thing you can change is if the delimiter is a comma.

      Any help setting up Excel to just display the csv file in column A like it did the first time would be appreciated, thanks.

      • Jeff_Stubing's avatar
        Jeff_Stubing
        Copper Contributor

        P_A_R_K_Y :  Just type something into an empty cell, do the Text To Columns with a strange character like a tilde (top left corner of keyboard).  THEN bring in your CSV data.

    • MysidEmq's avatar
      MysidEmq
      Copper Contributor

      So I've seen this solution in two places, but when I try 'text to columns' on an empty cell, I get this error message: "No data was selected to parse"

       

       

      • MysidEmq's avatar
        MysidEmq
        Copper Contributor
        Ok so I have to put a space in that cell first to do that. Ok - thank you!

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